


Find What You're Looking For

by publicbenches



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: A serendipitous meeting between two characters exclusively because I do what I want, F/F, Gen, Iroh appears at the end, Jet Week (Avatar), Post-Canon, References to Depression, Spirit World, implied trauma, korrasami is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/publicbenches/pseuds/publicbenches
Summary: Korra's been looking for Iroh in the Spirit World, but something keeps pulling her off course.[Jet Week Day 3: Older/TLoK Jet]
Relationships: Korra & Jet (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	Find What You're Looking For

**Author's Note:**

> this one is for Jet Week over on twitter! I took a lot of liberties with the spirit world and made up some stuff. I haven't read the Korra comics yet so sorry if any of the information is inconsistent!

Korra spends a lot of time in the Spirit World, these days. With the portals open, it’s easy to declare “Avatar Business” and disappear for weeks at a time, and if she’s feeling generous with herself she’ll say there really is a part of her that’s trying to sort things out. 

But it’s not the  _ main _ reason she leaves. 

Asami knows it. Mako and Bolin aren’t as attuned to this sort of thing, but it’s hard to hide anything from Asami. Maybe it’s part feminine intuition; Korra knows it’s probably because they’ve been together for so long. 

Asami doesn’t call her on it though. When, after a few days, a week, at best even a  _ month _ at home, Korra suddenly announces she’s leaving once again, Asami never protests. She helps Korra pack and drives her to the portal before the sun rises and kisses her goodbye, and she doesn’t offer to come with anymore because that would mean Korra has to explain why she  _ can’t,  _ and Korra can’t do that either. There’s an ache in that. The memory of their time together in the Spirit World flares up every time Asami sees her off, back before the hollowness set in. It’s not Asami’s fault, and because they both know that it doesn’t become a subject of contempt between them. But Asami’s eyes still search hers before she leaves, and even if she doesn’t say anything, there’s an understanding in that silence that hurts more than any argument ever has. 

When Korra finally leaves Asami and the Material World behind for the Spirit World, it feels like the first breath of fresh air she’s taken since she left. It makes her feel horribly guilty. There are so many good things happening for her back home. The world is at peace (or at least as at-peace as it ever gets). She has her family who loves her and her friends who would do anything for her and she has  _ Asami, _ obviously, and Korra thinks that’s a pretty good lot to come out of the past few years of chaos with. 

But it’s the fact that it’s all come out of those past few years of chaos that makes it so hard. She can’t explain it. Sometimes it just feels like the Spirit World is the only place left that’s wide and strange enough to wander around in without running into old ghosts. 

Which is rather ironic, when she phrases it like that. 

It occurs to her that she’s looking for Zuko’s uncle, once. He’s the only person she can think of, living or spirit, that might be able to help her make sense of her… problem. Yes, it’s a problem. It doesn’t help to deny it anymore, and don’t people usually find their way to what they need most, in the Spirit World? That’s been her experience at least. 

Korra wanders through a dense fog, for a while. She’s pretty sure time doesn’t pass the same in the Spirit World, but it feels like it’s been days since she last saw any real kind of landscape. She’s not worried — she’s got a good enough reputation with the spirits these days that she knows they’ll help her out if she really needs it — but it’s frustrating when she’s straining to catch the voice of an old man in the deafening silence and all she gets for her efforts is the milky, swirling ether. 

She can’t pinpoint the moment the fog becomes a forest. The Spirit World is annoying like that. All she knows is that she spends days pressing on through a suffocating fog, and then suddenly she’s stepping between trees so massive it would take all of Team Avatar linking hands to wrap around their trunks completely, and even then they might need the help of the airbender kids. The canopy is a brilliant vermillion that casts golden light onto the floor around her, the mulch underfoot sharp in her nose and softened by fallen leaves that curl red and brown over the earth. A wind stirs the branches and sends a renewed cascade of leaves down to the forest floor, but the branches don’t seem any more bare for it. This place lives in a perpetual state of early autumn, Korra realizes. There is birdsong but no birds. There is a shimmering haze to it all that tells her this is a relatively fresh spirit domain (probably only a hundred years old, if that). She doesn’t encounter young domains like this often, but they’re easily recognized when she knows what to look for. If she focuses, she can see the fog creeping back in between the trees, but she dismisses it. Maybe she’s supposed to be here, after all. 

Maybe this is where Iroh is. 

“Hello?” she calls out. Her voice echoes back faintly, and she ignores it. She pushes deeper into the forest, peering around each trunk she passes, hoping to catch a glimpse of gray hair and crimson robes. 

She’s not looking where she’s stepping, and when she blinks she’s suddenly hundreds of feet above the ground, about to walk off the edge of a wooden platform nailed to the trunk of one of the tallest trees. She shouts and lurches back, her hands finding a railing and latching on. 

Someone laughs behind her. If she weren’t half a step from falling to her death (well, not like she couldn’t catch herself with some well-timed airbending, but there’s a haze to the Spirit World that makes her forget that she can do that, sometimes), she’d jump forward at the sound of it. It’s a shockingly melodic sound, and the echo of it is only offset by a single heartbeat. Korra turns. 

There’s a boy leaning back against the rail on the other side of the platform. His clothes are mismatched and tattered, poorly fitting in the way she’s seen on refugees and street kids, except he’s decorated with a few incongruent pieces of armor, which is not common on refugees. His hand rests on his hip above a pair of vicious looking hook swords in a casual way that screams of experience. His brown hair falls in a wild mop over his head. A stalk of wheat bobs between his lips as he suppresses an amused grin. 

“Careful,” he says, making no move to reach out and help balance her. “It’s a longer fall than it looks.”

Korra looks. It still looks like a pretty long drop, even without the weird dream-physics of the Spirit World factored in. She frowns and pulls herself safely onto the inside of the railing, then looks at the boy. 

“Who are you?” she asks, wracking her brain to try and remember if she’s heard any stories about a kid with hook swords from her mentors over the years. She’s pretty sure a descriptor like that would stick with her. She gives up fairly quickly. 

The boy cocks his head to the side. “You don’t remember?” And then, after a second, “Ohh, of course not.”

Korra doesn’t like his dancing around the topic. “Am I  _ supposed  _ to remember you?”

The boy shrugs, unfazed by the sudden spike in her temper. “I guess not. I can’t say I’m an expert on Avatar stuff, so even if you hadn’t wiped the slate clean I have no idea whether you’d recognize me.”

The reminder of the irreversible damage she’s done to the Avatar Cycle stings like an open wound run under hot water. “Can’t say I’m really getting the impression that I’d  _ want  _ to.”

He laughs again, but there’s a sort of self-deprecating edge to it this time that dulls her irritation. “Probably not,” he agrees. “We had a… complicated relationship, once upon a time.”

Korra gives him another once over. “You were Aang’s friend,” she decides finally. 

The boy’s gaze slants sideways. “Friend might be a generous word,” he says. “In the beginning, kind of, and at the end there for a bit. Mostly I think he hated me.”

It’s Korra’s turn to laugh now. “Aang barely hated  _ anyone,  _ and especially not without a good reason.”

The boy shrugs a shoulder uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, I gave him plenty of reasons.” His lips are still stubbornly quirked in a smile, but it’s brittle, like it could fracture any second. Maybe there’s a bit of Aang left after all, because she has a sudden feeling that she really doesn’t want to see what happens when it finally breaks. 

“My name’s Jet,” he offers suddenly, and the fragile cut of his smile eases back into something more genuine. “Since I guess this counts as our first meeting.”

“Korra,” she says. She’s not sure if she should bow to him or shake hands or what. She decides against doing anything. He doesn’t seem to mind. “What is this place? And why am I here?”

Jet nods down over the edge of the platform. Carefully, Korra takes another look. She hadn’t noticed before (or perhaps they just hadn’t been there before), but perched in the trees below are several other platforms like the one they’re standing on, some supporting tents or wooden huts and all interconnected with bridges and zip lines. A chorus of delighted shrieks draws her attention to the kids chasing each other through the branches. 

“Welcome to the Freedom Fighters’ hideout,” Jet says. “New and improved, since the original isn’t around anymore. As for why you’re here…” Korra looks back in time to see him shrugging. “I’m a ghost, not a psychic. I was hoping you’d tell me.”

Korra looks back down at the spirits playing in the trees. It’s easier than looking Jet in the eye. “I was looking for a friend of mine. Been looking for a while, actually. I don’t know why he’s suddenly become so hard to find.”

“Plenty of kids pass through here,” Jet says. “Maybe I’ve run into him?”

Korra shakes her head. “Nah, you won’t see him here. He’s an old man — I know age is like, fluid here, but he’s pretty much  _ always _ old.”

“This old man of yours have a name?”

“Iroh,” Korra says easily. “Aang’s friend, Zuko — Iroh’s his uncle. He gives really good advice. I guess I’m hoping he could give me some — Jet?”

As if a cloud has passed over the sun, the world grays suddenly, and all at once becomes very cold. Wind picks up, whistling sharply through the boughs and rattling the dry, curling leaves loose. The kids below go silent and vanish into thin air. 

Korra turns and sees Jet clutching at his face like he’s been struck with a migraine. She rushes over on instinct and takes him by the shoulder, asking if he’s alright.

“A minute,” he manages between slow, choked breathing. Korra takes that as her sign to back off, but she still hovers nearby, ready to surge back in if he gets worse. 

After a few moments that might actually be hours, for all that time means anything here, yellow warmth seeps back into the world around them, and the scene resumes as if nothing had happened at all. 

Jet lowers his hands with a slow breath. When he opens his eyes at last, they’re darker than she remembers. “Sorry.” He tries for a smile. It only half works. “Talk about embarrassing.”

“What was that?” Korra blurts, forgetting that might be rude to just  _ ask.  _

If Jet has any problem with her bluntness, it’s impossible to tell. “Leftovers,” he says.

“Leftovers?”

“From when I was alive,” he clarifies. Clears his throat. “Spirits don’t work the same that living humans do. When you’re alive, change is easy. It’s natural. It’s expected.

“Spirits are different. It’s a lot harder to change, once you’re dead. Sure, your age might fluctuate a bit here and there depending on the day, but you’ll never be older than when you died. You’ll never  _ grow,  _ and the same goes for… the non-physical stuff.”

A chill grips the back of Korra’s neck suddenly, and she looks up to make sure the strange darkness hasn’t returned. Nope, all clear. “So leftovers are..?”

Jet folds his arms and leans back against the rail, a deceptive picture of nonchalance. “It just means it’s something I can’t get rid of completely, since it was a… big part of me, when I died.” 

Korra props a hand on her hip and shifts her weight over her left leg. “And what was this one, exactly? You got a thing against old men?”

He barks a laugh at that. “Nothing but envy, maybe.” He shakes his head. “No, I… I know the man you’re talking about.”

An icy breeze threatens the landscape once more, but it passes quickly. Korra raises an eyebrow. “That reaction was because of  _ Iroh? _ But he’s like, the sweetest guy ever!”

“He’s  _ Fire Nation!”  _ Jet seems to spit the words before he can help it. He snaps his jaw shut and screws up his eyes immediately after, breathing hard through another foreboding gust of wind. “Sorry,” he grits out. “He’s — he was — I met him once, when we were both alive. He was hiding in Ba Sing Se, disguised as an Earth Kingdom refugee. Saw him —  _ Ha! _ — I saw him firebend his tea, of all things. Got myself killed for that.”

Korra has a hard time following. “Iroh… killed you? For seeing him firebend?” That doesn’t sound right at all. 

Jet shakes his head. “No, he didn’t do anything to me. That’s the most infuriating part of it.” When he looks up to meet her eyes again, there’s a vitriol warring with his intentionally neutral expression that he doesn’t quite manage to hide. “The man who killed me was named Long Feng. He was head of the Dai Li, and he didn’t want anyone talking about the war inside the walls.”

_ But he was Earth Kingdom,  _ Korra wants to argue, but she bites her tongue. What good would that do? Jet’s well aware, and she knows the Dai Li were corrupt for a long time even before the hundred year war. She knows all about Ba Sing Se’s horrifying policies. 

Jet sighs and shifts his weight back against the rail again. He plucks the stalk of wheat from his lips. “Anyway, I had some problems with the Fire Nation when I was alive. I ended up doing some things I’m not proud of, and I let a lot of people down.” He pauses, and his gaze slips down. “Mushi —  _ Iroh _ was like the rest of his nation, part of the  _ rot,  _ before we met. But he was trying to make up for it. I’m… still struggling with that part.”

Korra shifts uncomfortably, and thinks of Asami, of Mako. She wonders what Jet would think of a mixed family like his and Bolin’s; what he would think of her relationship with Asami. She doesn’t bring it up. 

“I’ve made my peace with it, as best I can,” Jet continues. “But that’s the thing about being dead: you always run the risk of getting set back to where you started, if you’re not careful.”

His smile twists into a rueful thing. He shakes his head at himself, then looks back up at her. “If you do end up finding him, could you tell him something for me?”

“I… guess,” Korra says.  _ As long as it’s not a challenge to some kind of spirit duel. Do they have those? That sounds like it could be a thing. _

Jet puts the wheat back between his teeth. “Tell him I’m sorry,” he murmurs. If not for the strange dream logic of the Spirit World, she might not have heard him at all. 

She watches him for a second, as if waiting for a punchline (maybe she really does remember him a little, somehow). It doesn’t come. She nods. “Sure.”

Jet’s smile widens, and it feels familiar. “Great,” he says by way of thanks. He shifts forward onto the balls of his feet and pushes off the railing. “It’s getting late. I have to head off dinner. You’re welcome to join us, if you want.”

Sure enough, as soon as he’s said it, the afternoon light has given way to dusk. Korra considers for a second, then shakes her head. “I appreciate the offer,” she says, “but I should get going.” She can’t explain it, but she’s certain she’ll find Iroh as soon as she leaves. 

Jet’s not offended. “Sure,” he says. “Well, if you ever wanna chat, you know where to find me.”

Then he turns with a wave over his shoulder, and Korra blinks, and Jet and the treehouse and the forest are gone, leaving her back in the fog she started in. 

When she starts off again, she knows the way. She doesn’t think her conversation with Jet really helped her, but apparently the Spirit World had decided it needed to happen. 

It wasn’t about her, she realizes as she finally catches sight of Iroh’s robes at the edge of the fog and calls out to him. Just as she was hoping the Spirit World would guide her to Iroh, Jet probably needed it to guide him to his own answers. (Or rather, guide the answer to him, in her case.) 

She doesn’t know for sure if either of them will find what they’re looking for in Iroh, but Jet was right about one thing: the living never stop changing. The hollowness in her chest finds great comfort in that. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! <3


End file.
